Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Media Matters: CNN's Koch falsely reported District 22 poll

On the October 30 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, correspondent Kathleen Koch misrepresented the results of a Houston Chronicle/KHOU-TV poll, conducted October 23-25 by Zogby International, falsely claiming that the poll shows Republican write-in candidate Shelley Sekula-Gibbs is "neck and neck, tied actually" with Democrat Nick Lampson in the race to fill former House Republican Leader Tom DeLay's (R-TX) open seat. In fact, the poll shows Lampson ahead of Sekula-Gibbs by eight percentage points: Lampson is currently favored by 36 percent of likely voters in the 22nd Congressional District, while Sekula-Gibbs is supported by 28 percent. A total of 35 percent of respondents support all write-in candidates combined; Koch falsely attributed support for all write-in candidates to Sekula-Gibbs.

Republicans were unable to put a replacement candidate on the 22nd District ballot after DeLay resigned from Congress in June because courts had ruled that the party could not put a different candidate on the ballot after DeLay had won the primary. The Houston Chronicle/KHOU poll's margin of error was 4.5 percentage points.

From the October 30 edition of CNN's Situation Room:

KOCH: Wolf, the White House does believe that the president's appearances help, or else they wouldn't be putting him out there. As a matter of fact they're putting him out in these very tight districts, tight races, where they think the president can do the most good. He's in Sugar Land, Texas, or will be shortly, speaking to a crowd of about roughly 7,000 in an airport hangar and campaigning for, among others, the Republican write-in candidate who wants to fill former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's seat, and it turns out that candidate, Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, is now neck-and-neck, tied actually, with her Democratic challenger.